2228 pages
I spent my summer reading this trilogy. I enjoyed Sanderson's Steelheart and Firefight but this series is much better by far, probably because it's more for the 16+ crowd. It's a lot smarter and written for adults. Younger readers would definitely get lost in some of the philosophical stuff and trying to keep track of all the metals and the abilities they give Allomancers. Plus it's also a little bloody and violent in parts but not graphically so. I was told that I should read them all in a row because there's so much going on and it's easy to forget if you read things in between. (I did discover a summary at the back of each book though which is helpful.)
So here's what I love about fantasies: They are usually stories about people who do hard or nearly impossible things and often at great cost to themselves because it's the right thing to do. They have strong friendships, they make sacrifices, and the story doesn't always end wrapped up in a nice symbolic bow. I admire authors that are able to kill characters that they know a reader will grow to love because it suits the story better than having them miraculously survive everything. I also love a story that makes me cry or feel some strong emotion when I'm through. This series was exactly that. I loved how the author wove everything together, especially in the last book, and explained some things that had kept you guessing in a really smart way. I want to read it again sometime...right after I re-read all 4,000+ pages of Harry Potter. There just aren't enough hours in the day!
{spoiler alert}
1. Vin is a great main character. She's strong yet vulnerable. I love that the author wrote her as being short and slight yet he gives her incredible powers that make her a force to be reckoned with. She finally learns how to reconcile the two parts of her--the part that grew up on the streets, being part of thieving crews to survive, and the part that enjoys being a noblewoman and an emperor's wife.
2. Elend is the perfect match for Vin. He's insufferable when she first meets him and yet he's drawn to her because she's different. (Probably because she's impersonating a noble woman when she's really a thief.) Elend is a scholar at first but has to become so much more by the end of the series and he really comes into his own in a way that makes he and Vin perfectly matched for each other.
3. Their ending is gut-wrenching. When Vin turns into Preservation and then has to watch Elend die it sort of rips your heart out. I love the line where she says that she gave him up at the Well of Ascension and that their time since then had been a gift.
4. Kelsier is one of my favorites. He was arrogant and determined. He was Vin's tutor and mentor and probably the first person Vin felt like cared about her. His death was a shock at first but so necessary to the story.
5. Marsh is the tragedy of the book for me. He becomes an Inquisitor in order to help Kelsier spy on the Lord Ruler and then he becomes Ruin's Inquisitor and retains very little of his own will. He's a terrifying mental image with 20+ spikes implanted in him, including two through his eyes. The way those spikes are placed is one of the more gruesome revelations in the third book.
6. Sazed is the heart and soul of this series in my opinion. He's the Keeper of the Terris people and has been a servant for most of his life. He studies religion and then when he loses the one woman he loves, he loses his faith and has to regain that. He ends up being the Hero of Ages, taking both Preservation's power and Ruin's power and turning the world back into what it once was.
7. The Kandra were the most interesting race of the ones created by the Lord Ruler and their purpose and where they came from (revealed in book 3) is genius. OreSeur and TenSoon were both great additions to the story, especially when they're in wolfhound form. I liked that they both formed a friendship with Vin that was against their nature.
8. Allomancy and Feruchemy. These took a little while to understand but I think the author had a firm grasp on their powers and how they work alone and together. The scene at the end where Elend and his army burn all the atium, which is really Ruin's body, is awesome. Elend and his men know they're going to die but they're going to take Ruin with them.
9. Hermalurgy. This is the reason for the metal spikes and their placement grants the person certain powers stolen from other people. Ruin controls and influences people with these spikes. Vin's earring is revealed to be a spike placed by her mother and that is how Vin can hear Ruin talking to her and trying to influence her. I loved that Marsh is able to assert his will long enough to rip it from her ear and allow Preservation to take over Vin.
10. The ending. The world this story takes place in is a black and dreary one. The land is covered in ash from the ash mounts which keep the sun from burning everything up and they get worse and worse as the story progresses. There's no color anywhere. The mists cover the land and make people afraid because sometimes the mist kills. (Finding out that the mist was turning people in Allomancers was so cool.) By book 3 there are earthquakes and things seem pretty bleak. When Sazed uses his vast amounts of knowledge to bring back flowers and grass it really makes you realize what a shock that would be to the people who'd just survived.
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